Of Queens and Snow
by I-Am-Jacks-Smirking-Revenge
Summary: A woman watches her child play, and a future is born.


Of Queens and Snow

"Queen of all Wonderland, _en guard_! I am here to take your throne!" Lilly MacKay cried shrilly as she waved a stick at an imaginary threat. "Your evil reign ends here!"

Inside the small house a mile outside Finchley, Allan MacKay grinned as he watched through the window. "What an imagination she has... I hope she never loses it."

For some reason, his wife bristled as though personally insulted. "She's too old to be playing pretend like that."

"Come, now, my dear. You don't really believe that?"

His smile faded as he saw the frosty, serious expression on her face. Though he loved her deeply, he sometimes found her constant iron grip on only reality saddening. She had been a woman alone when he first met her, and though she no longer was, she still acted like it.

"An imagination is sometimes the best tool in life, my love. Surely you knew this once."

Her hard, cold eyes flicked to the window, and for a moment, he thought he saw... envy. But it was gone before it was really there, and she went back to scrubbing furiously at dishes.

Outside, Lilly did a complicated slash, kick and twirl, ending in her toppling over someone who had come up behind her without her knowing.

"Ouch!"

From the kitchen window, her mother called sharply, "Lilly! What have I told you about rough housing?" Her father's musical laughter echoed after.

"It's not rough housing, mum, I just fell over!"

She twisted to look at who she had tripped over. A boy about her age was rubbing his head sorely.

"Sorry about that." She offered a hand to help him up, eying him closely. He looked well kept, perhaps too well kept for a boy. "What's your name? I haven't ever seen you before."

He took her hand with a bit of a sniff. "Elroy Ackart. We just moved in down the road." He pointed to a large house a ways back, separated from all the other little houses around her own by a wide yard and nice hedging. She knew the house, of course. It had been mostly empty ever since she could remember, and though it was nice looking, rumors from the town children claimed it to be haunted.

She stared at him in wonder. "_That's_ your house! Are you rich or something?"

"Lilly!" Her mother's shocked voice reprimanded from inside.

"_Mum!_ Stop listening in!"

The boy looked stiff, but Lilly was given the impression that this wasn't because she had made him uncomfortable, simply that that was the way he always looked. "Yes, actually. Quite rich. Father's running for governor, you know."

Lilly was only a bit impressed. "No, I actually didn't."

Not at all fazed, the boy eyed her stick skeptically. "What were you doing just now? I had thought you were having a seizure or something from down the road."

All the mistrust melted away from Lilly's face and was replaced with a grin reminiscent of her father's. "I was playing Wonderland! Would you like to play with me? My name is Lilly, by the way."

He looked at her with a carefully hidden curiosity. "Well... I suppose... What do I do?"

Lilly appeared to consider for a moment. Then she discarded her stick and bounced up and down. "You can be Alice, and I'll be the White Rabbit. Catch me if you can!"

He started to protest being cast as a girl, but Lilly had already bolted down the walk. Flustered, he ran after her as fast as he could.

"See, dear? That imagination's made her a new friend." Allan said quietly.

His wife did not answer. She set down the dish and calmly left the room, leaving her husband to sigh discontentedly. Entering her own room, she shut the door firmly behind her and strode to the large, ornate mirror decorating one wall.

Staring into her reflections eyes, she considered her looks. She really was quite beautiful. It had come to her in age, and so far had stayed. What her husband didn't know was that reality was not what she clung to.

She had forsaken reality long ago.

_She closed her eyes to keep the tears at bay as Lucy excitedly recounted her adventures with Edmund, Eustace and Caspian to Peter. A chill raced across her flesh as she tried to numb herself to the pain._

A deep, icy chill that set winter upon her soul. They had defeated eternal winter once, hadn't they.

"No," he mouth moved to the words she no longer believed. "That was just a game."

"_Edmund, Lucy, you're too old! These silly games are for children. And Peter how could you encourage them like that? It's time they started living in the real world, isn't it?"_

The mirror slowly began to glow, and Susan watched impassively as a black space filled with white, hot pin pricks of light replaced her image. All of the stars slowly faded out, replaced by a yellower, more friendly light. A lamp post. The trees beyond slowly came into view, and then, almost as quickly, disappeared. Cair Paravel over the ocean was the next familiar image. And then a place she had never seen, but knew immediately from tales heard over long nights in front of a fireplace. The dead city of Charn, Jadis' city.

Perhaps, then, Jadis knew more then any of them. _More than Aslan?_

_Aslan is not real._

_A dream, or a dream of a dream._

"_Oh, Susan, how could you forget? Once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen of Narnia."_

Cold determination settled in over her face.

And so it would be.

_**End?**_

_A/N:_ This is just a thought of what might happen to Susan in the future, and how, feeling abandoned by Narnia, she may have even become evil. If ever this story were to continue, which it might, it would definitely have elements of Snow White and Wonderland in it. What do you think?


End file.
